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Apple (AAPL) is at it again. Less than four months after completing a $7-billion bond deal, the technology titan headed back Tuesday for another bite from the corporate bond market.

This time, Apple sold $5 billion in notes in an offering that included two-year fixed- and floating-rate notes, along with five-year and 10-year notes and a 30-year bond.

An economist at Intellectus Partners, quoted by Bloomberg, pointed out that the bonds behave like U.S. Treasuries, noting the narrow risk premiums on the bonds and that the sale was designed to imitate the U.S. yield curve.

The iPhone maker can’t print its own currency like the U.S. government does, but it’s certainly approaching something akin to favored-nation status in the debt markets. Apple’s sale of $5 billion of bonds Tuesday was even designed to mimic the U.S. government curve, with benchmarks for repeat issuance of debt due in two, five, 10 and 30 years. Moreover, the narrow risk premiums on Apple’s bonds suggest duration that’s more like government than corporate peers, according to Emons, with bigger compensation for risk of future Federal Reserve rate hikes than for the chance of default.

But MarketWatchreports that CreditSights was cautious on the 30-year bond.

CreditSights, which recently upgraded its recommendation on Apple bonds to market perform, remained cautious about the 30-year tenor after the deal priced, given the company’s business profile. Apple is still highly reliant on the strength of the iPhone, which accounted for 63% of sales in the last 12 months. The company has announced a 10th anniversary launch event for the smartphone for Sept. 12, at which it is expected to reveal the iPhone 8.

Worldwide stock dividend payments hit record highs in the second quarter of this year, with financial and technology names leading the charge. Are more gains on the horizon?

A report released by Janus Henderson Group (JHG) showed that dividend payments rose 5.4% last quarter from the previous year to $447.5 billion. The 20 biggest dividend payers, a list led by Nestle (NESN.Switzerland) Zurich Insurance Group (ZURN.Switzerland), HSBC Holdings (HSBC) Sanofi (SNY) and Allianz (ALIZF) accounted for $74.4 billion of that sum.

But the real news is that Janus Henderson raised its full-year 2017 forecast. The firm now predicts a record $1.208 trillion in dividend payments this year, marking a 3.9% increase from a year ago. That new forecast is a $50-billion hike over the initial 2017 forecast issued back in January.

Alex Crooke, the report’s author and head of global equity income at Janus Henderson, offered up these conclusions:

In contrast to recent years, economic forecasts for 2017 are seeing upgrades. This is supportive for company profits and dividends. The upswing is bringing an improvement in dividend growth, following a prolonged period during which it has been rather subdued. The first half of 2017 was stronger than we expected, and we are now slightly upgrading our forecasts for the second half, too. Moreover, the U.S. dollar has weakened a little further against many currencies since our last report, so it will prove less of a drag on the headline figures in the second half if it maintains its current levels.

In the U.S., where dividend-paying companies typically distribute cash to shareholders every quarter, also hit a new record, rising 9.8% to $111.6 billion. Almost one-third of that headline increase stemmed from a one-time special dividend from Costco Wholesale (COST), though banks were also among the fastest growers.

Records were also set in Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Indonesia and South Korea.

Apple builds upon its Apple Pay foundation by promising access at up to 50% of US retailers by year-end, but more importantly introduces a person-to-person payment option to take on PayPal/Venmo, Google Wallet and Zelle, the big banks’ upcoming venture.

These developments are credit positive at the margin, with the biggest factor being Apple’s continued expansion of products around the ecosystem. In this case the company is playing catch up to Amazon & PayPal, but its real goal is to cement loyal users for life. Today’s introductions will add a lot more stickiness to Apple’s loyal base, especially since they enhance the Apps & Services platforms.

On Thursday it came to market with a plan to sell sets of bonds maturing in three, five, seven and 10 years. This is pretty much customary for Apple — with one difference. Usually, Apple also sells a 30-year tranche.

Peter Tchir of Brean Capital took note of this, writing to clients:

This is the 7th time Apple has come to market with a big slate of bonds. They started in 2013 with no debt and should be at about $100 billion by the end of today.

In each of those prior deals they issued 30 year bonds – but not this time. Prior long bond deals trade as low as 91 (issued in 2013 to almost 109 issued in 2016).

Is it uncertainty over taxes? Talk about an ultra-bond on treasury side? Repatriation?

Maybe it means nothing, but I think it is at least mildly curious that they aren’t doing a new long bond here.

If Apple is able to repatriate its $250 billion in cash at a low rate as part of corporate tax reform, Apple won’t need to borrrow to fund its shareholder reward programs. That may explain why it sees less need to lock in 30-year debt.

Research firm CreditSights also took note of the lack of a 30-year tranche. It reiterated its “underperform” rating on Apple bonds, but said the rating is mostly because it sees the 30-year bonds as very expensive. Yields are the second closest to Treasury yields of all the investment-grade “super techs,” the firm notes.

Analysts Jordan Chalfin and Jay Mayers write that they think the seven-year tranche is the best value based on the initial pricing talk. But they expect that the spread over Treasuries (talk is that the 10-year could yield 90 basis points more than the 10-year Treasury) to be reduced when the bonds are actually put up for sale, a later stage in the process.

Apple (AAPL) is taking a bigger bite out of the bond market. Apple returned to the debt capital markets on Monday with the sale of $6.5bn in bonds as the tech giant took advantage of a drop in borrowing costs to fund its aggressive share buyback program.

Initially investors expected a $5 billion offering. But according to FT.com, as the banks started to market the bonds, “investors lined up to buy the securities, bringing total orders close to $15bn.” The strong demand helped fuel Apple’s decision to boost the size of the offer.

Investors crave bond offerings from companies with high credit ratings. Apple certainly fits the bill, with Moody’s Investors Service pegging Apple at Aa1, the second highest rating available.

Another tech giant, Netflix (NFLX) unveiled plans today for a $1 billion bond offering. S&P downgraded the debt to B-plus from BB-minus, moving the rating further into speculative, or junk territory, and turned negative on the streaming video company’s outlook.

Apple has issued about $32 billion in bonds since April 2013. It sold €2.8bn in bonds in November, its debut sale in a currency other than U.S. dollars. In April 2014, the company sold $12 billion in the U.S., preceded a year earlier by a $17 billion offering.

Apple crushed fiscal first-quarter earnings expectations last week. Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 30%, year over year to $74.6 billion, yielding per share earnings of $3.06. The company sold 74.5 million iPhones, topping average estimates in the range of 67 million to 70 million.

Last week, Apple disclosed last week it had a massive $178 billion in cash as of the end of the December quarter. The company has been criticized for how it doles that money out to investors through buybacks and dividends.

Still, it comes at a time when investors crave offerings from companies with high credit ratings. And Apple certainly fits the bill, with Moody’s Investors Service pegging Apple at Aa1, the second highest rating available.

It also comes after the company disclosed last week it had a massive $178 billion in cash as of the end of the December quarter. The company has been criticized for how it doles that money out to investors through buybacks and dividends.

Apple crushed fiscal first-quarter earnings expectations last week. Revenue in the three months ended in December rose 30%, year over year to $74.6 billion, yielding per share earnings of $3.06. The company sold 74.5 million iPhones, topping average estimates in the range of 67 million to 70 million.

Apple’s impending bond sale was filed with the SEC, though rates and amounts listed in the document remain blank.

As with past bond sales, it’s likely that Apple will use the money to help fund its capital reinvestment program, which includes a quarterly dividend to shareholders, as well as a share buyback effort.

In April 2013, Apple sold $17 billion in the U.S. At the time, it was the largest corporate bond sale on record. A year later, the company followed with a $12 billion bond sale.

It’s been two and a half years since Apple (AAPL) joined the ranks of dividend-paying stocks.

The excitement over the tech giant’s stand out fourth-quarter financial results, fueled by staggering iPhone demand has overshadowed the ongoing situation with the company’s cash hoard. Apple’s new found role as the market’s “go-to dividend stock,” offering investors the rare mixture of income and growth. But it has been criticized – Carl Icahn is watching — for how it doles that money out to investors through buybacks and dividends.

Apple manages its cash through a subsidiary, Braeburn Capital. Some have referred to it as one of the largest hedge funds in the world. In October, Icahn, an activist shareholder, demanded more share buybacks, valuing Apple’s stock at more than $200 a share.

Apple ended the fourth quarter sitting on $178 billion in cash and securities, which is a serious chunk of change. Can we put that in some sort of context? Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices, writes:

If that was an issue it would be the 14th largest in the S&P 500 and If Apple distributed it to the 320 million Americans, it would be $556 per person – wasn’t the oil ‘tax cut’ $750 a family?

Apple spent $5 billion buying back 46 million shares, and it paid $2.8 billion in dividends. That brings the amount of cash returned to shareholders to nearly $103 billion — $57 billion in the past 12 months.

Apple declared a cash dividend of 47 cents a share, payable Feb. 12 to shareholders of record as of the close of Feb. 9.

Various newsmedia are reporting today that Apple (AAPL) is in talks with potential investors to sell euro-denominated bonds for the first time, taking advantage of the extraordinarily low borrowing rates across Europe right now. Ben Edwards reports this afternoon for the Wall Street Journal:

The iPhone maker spoke with investors Monday about issuing bonds, and a euro-denominated deal is expected as early as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs Inc. are the banks hired to arrange the transaction….

Investors say Apple, which is rated Aa1 by Moody’s Investors Service and AA+ by Standard & Poor’s—the second-highest credit ranking, is considering issuing in euros to diversify its funding sources.

Europe’s slender borrowing costs may also be a factor in the timing of the deal, investors say. The average yield for nonfinancial companies issuing bonds in euros is a near-record low of 1.47%, according to a Markit index, helped by signs that the European Central Bank may be considering corporate bond purchases as part of a scheme to boost the eurozone’s shaky economic recovery.

While the U.S. Federal Reserve just ended its bond-buying program and is expected to begin raising interest rates sometime in 2015, the European Central Bank has been moving in the opposite direction recently, cutting rates and launching its own bond-buying program. That’s helped pushed European sovereign bond yields near all-time lows, with the 10-year German bund currently yielding 0.86%, versus 2.35% for a 10-year U.S. Treasury bond. Hence corporate borrowing costs are currently lower in Europe too.

DoubleLine bond maven Jeffrey Gundlach just wrapped up his latest webcast (for more on that see here and here) with his customary wide-ranging Q&A segment, which as usual touched on all sort of stocks and other asset classes. The brief recap:

Apple (AAPL): Gundlach likes to check back in on Apple periodically given his prescient call in 2012. “Apple is in a world of its own” that’s “uncorrelated” to the rest of the stock market and essentially acts as “its own asset class,” Gundlach said, adding that he “would not expect to make tons of money on the price” and that “maybe it goes to 600″ but that it might just be a stock to own for the dividend for now.

Annaly (NLY): Gundlach said he “deeply believes” that this agency mortgage REIT “has good management” but that he has not bought NLY and “I don’t think there any rush” to buy because “I just don’t think the dividend can go up, particularly since they’re reducing leverage…. I have no problem owning Annaly at this price, I just don’t think the price is going to go up in the near term.” He said he “thought about buying Annaly” at $9.25 but “it never got there,” adding that investors “might get a yield of about 10%” which could be reason enough to own it these days.

Closed-end bond funds: “Do I still think closed-end bond funds are a good buy? I do think they’re a good buy… In recent days the value of the bonds has gone up and the value of the ETFs has not gone up. You’re buying them at an underlying discount to the bonds.”

Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS: “I’ve hated them for a while, I hate them less now,” he said, adding that “inflation protected bonds have a lot of interest rate risk” and touting his advice to avoid TIPS last year, a year in which TIPS lost about 9%. “TIPS have huge duration, and time and time again they’ve shown that when you have a short-term spike in interest rate risk the worst performer is going to be TIPS. He said even if you think inflation is on the rise, you’re going to be able to buy TIPS at a cheaper price before that happens.

Puerto Rico bonds: He said he thinks there are “too many votes” tied to helping Puerto Rico out of its fiscal mess and that “I think Puerto Rico bonds are going to make it to the other side of the valley,” presumably a reference to Puerto Rico bonds not being involved in any sort of default, unless Puerto Rico bonds are actually currently being transported across some sort of valley somewhere. Ditto for bonds of JC Penney (JCP), with Gundlach calling Puerto Rico Debt and JCP bonds both “things that will make it to the other side of the valley” after a lot of volatility along the way.

Chipotle (CMG): “I am just in awe of the valuation of CMG… It should drop by 30% but I’ve been dead wrong on that for the last eight months.”

That Verizon (VZ) bond offering that the market is awaiting just keeps on mushrooming, and by the time it’s supposed to get done this week it might not just beat Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) record $17 billion bond sale, it may triple that deal in size. To recap, Verizon is looking to raise money to help fund its $130 billion buyout ofVodafone Group’s (VOD) stake in Verizon Wireless, and the size of the deal was initially expected to be somewhere just north of $20 billion.

Big, sure, but why not go outrageously big? Over the course of the day, the value of the deal’s order book has been variously reported by market participants as $75 billion, then $100 billion, meaning that’s how much investor interest had been expressed. Now the Wall Street journal is reporting that the deal could exceed $40 billion, both Reuters and Bloomberg are reporting that the deal could end up being somewhere between $45 and $49 billion in size. Stay tuned.

Amey Stone is Barron’s Income Investing blogger and Current Yield columnist. She was formerly a managing editor at CBS MoneyWatch, MSN Money and AOL DailyFinance. Her responsibilities included overseeing market coverage and personal finance topics. Prior to those roles, she was a senior writer at BusinessWeek where she authored the Street Wise column online and contributed to the magazine’s Inside Wall Street column. Topics covered included economics, corporate finance, Fed policy, municipal bonds, mutual funds and dividend investing. She co-authored King of Capital, a biography of Citigroup Chairman Sandy Weill. She is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.